Sunshine and Brick Walls
by Senatsu
Summary: A late night at the office and a bit of brooding about his own name lead Carlton Lassiter down an unusual train of thought... This story is also being posted at the Lassiter Juliet community on LiveJournal.
1. What's in a Name?

"Carlton?"

He still wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that. That name. The one woman who had called him that on a daily basis now wanted nothing to do with him. The Chief only said it when she was angry, trying to get his attention, or both. "Detective" came far more often. And of course there was Spencer's utterly ridiculous and moronic nickname. "Lassie." As if he were being compared to some pathetic farm dog who had nothing better to do than show everyone Timmy was stuck in the well. Again.

But then there was O'Hara. Despite the fact that he had only ever called her by last name, and hadn't even considered doing otherwise, somewhere along the way she had slipped into calling him Carlton.

Lassiter didn't even realize he'd failed to actually respond until he heard it a second time, though slightly louder in volume.

"Carlton...?"

"O'Hara?" His voice was gruff, as if she had just interrupted a very important thought process. He hoped to God she wouldn't think enough of it to ask.

It was then that he finally registered the stack of papers she was holding out toward him impatiently, her free hand on her hip. "The paperwork you asked for...?" she prompted him, eyebrow raised slightly.

His gaze drifted along the line of that brow, suddenly itching with an unwarranted urge to smooth over it with his fingertips. Startled, he curled his fingers into a fist briefly before extending his hand to her. "Right, right... " He quickly reached up and took them from her, setting them down squarely in front of himself. It took him a few moments to register the fact that she hadn't shifted away from the desk after handing over the paper stack. "Did you... er... need something, O'Hara?"

He was dismayed to discover, upon turning his gaze upward, that she was staring at him with an expression that said "I know something's up, buster." Juliet crossed her arms, her mouth set in a firm line, the corners turned down. "Did something happen, Carlton?"

He waved dismissively, trying to sound as though she said something compeletely irrational. "Of course not."

The young woman continued to gaze at him appraisingly. "It's just... you seem, well... distracted."

Again he waved her off. "Just mulling over my case, O'Hara. A good detective thinks about his current case frequently. A superb detective doesn't STOP thinking about it. Not until the perp is behind bars." And doesn't get distracted by idiotic name ponderings, he added silently.

To his displeasure, she seemed to know there was something he was not telling her. Her fingers tapped her upper arm expectantly as she stared him down. He was suddenly reminded of when he'd been the suspect in a murder and had to be on the receiving end of an interrogation. He hoped fervently that he would not sweat now as he did then (though, at the time it was because the evidence all pointed to him, not because he was guilty). If that happened right now he might as well sign a confession confirming her suspicion that something was up.

There was also the fact that her abnormally intimidating gaze seemed to be causing... other sorts of stirrings. The instant the realization crossed his mind, he stood up, his chair sliding back so fast it almost toppled over as he scooted sideways out from the desk. "I'm uh, going to get some water. Cold water." He coughed faintly and then scowled at her to the best of his ability. "Quit gawking, O'Hara, you're wasting time."

Sighing in resignation, she gave him one last Look before turning on her heel and striding back to her desk.

Carlton started to relax as she grew farther away. Until he noticed the faint scent of fruit wafting toward him from the direction she'd gone. Then he fled the room as briskly as he could believably manage; it took everything he had not to run.

He was Carlton Lassiter, Head Detective of the SBPD, experienced and seasoned man with plenty of cases under his belt and even a few wound scars from over the years - and here he was having to will himself out of hightailing it away from a woman that wasn't even coming toward him.

Something was very wrong with this picture.


	2. The Man in the Mirror

As he splashed cold water from the sink onto his face, rubbing his eyes, his mind suddenly drifted back to the clock tower. To the way his blood ran cold at the sound of Guster shouting her name, again and again, with no response. The overwhelming sense of wrongness with her absent from his side, as they waited for Yin to call. The panic, as that sick, maniacal bastard declared her a pawn in their twisted game. His determination to save her the instant he knew where she was, not even once questioning his decision to abandon protocol and orders for her. The frightened anger at the elevator being out of the question, the adrenaline flowing through him as he raced up those stairs at breakneck speed... the way his heart stopped completely in his chest at the sight of her in that chair.

A feeling of nausea welled up within him at the thought of what could have happened to her, and he thrust the thought away roughly, unwilling to dwell on it. He thought of the look on her face as she fought to maintain her composure in the face of the people around her that morning, the faint tremble in her body, the roughness with which she spoke.

The way his heart broke at the sound of her sobs as he held her in his arms.

It was the single most emotional embrace he'd ever given to anyone. He only wished it could have been under happier circumstances. But then, under happier circumstances it wouldn't have happened in the first place. A hug, yes - they'd hugged before. But not like that. Because it took a dire situation to get him to lower the walls he kept up to guard himself. Walls he'd lowered once before, even, only to be immediately forced to regret it. When he came to his wife with open arms and received divorce papers instead of a second chance. If only he'd realized sooner, much sooner. If only...

But there was no changing the past, only the future. And even though the walls were back up and stronger than ever, he hoped he could let them down again eventually. Because he didn't want to be alone, as much as he hated to admit it even to himself. He desperately wanted someone to share his life with. Right now he needed time. Time to summon the will to try again. Time to heal. Maybe those walls didn't even have to be torn down all at once, like his first attempt. Maybe he could trust enough to take them down one brick at a time.

But then again, wasn't he being helped to do that already?

He thought again of O'Hara, and how he'd somehow gone from ordering her around the same as he would any other officer to being willing to toss the rulebook out the window and save her at all costs. It could be said that that was simply what partners did for each other, and that was true to some extent. But he knew that having his previous partner end up in Juliet's situation would not have twisted his gut and wrenched his heart in quite the same way. He knew he would not have been quite so ready to defy the Chief for her and throw caution to the wind.

If he was really honest with himself, O'Hara probably knew him better than anyone - including his own ex-wife. She also probably trusted him more than anyone else he knew. None of his other acquaintances would ever have come to him to share a problem on their minds. (Well, save McNabb. But asking for bedroom tips didn't count.) He couldn't even begin to describe the oddly pleasant feeling that came over him when she confided in him about her ex-boyfriend apparently standing her up. Of course, the advice he'd given her about all love ending in despair was... somewhat questionable, he conceded now.

In a back corner of his mind that he tried very hard to ignore, he sometimes wondered if he'd given her that particular bad advice on purpose. She was a smart girl; she'd come to a conclusion of her own, eventually. But on the off chance that she took him seriously, even for a while...

'If she took you seriously and kept herself out of relationships, you'd have her all to yourself...right?' that voice in the corner whispered now.

He immediately turned the cold water back on and splashed his face again, running his wet fingers through his hair. Carlton looked up, then, gazing at himself in the mirror. The previous night's work had left faint dark circles beneath eyes that crinkled at the corners. Gray was beginning to concentrate in his sideburns and lightly sprinkle the top of his head. His nose was faintly crooked at the bridge, a reminder of an arrest years ago that had gotten it broken; it hadn't healed quite straight afterwards. 'Certainly not much to look at,' he thought cynically.

His eyes dropped to his mouth. A mouth that barely knew how to smile. It was far better trained to grimace, and on the odd occasion that the corners turned upward, it was usually to smirk arrogantly. He tried, now, pulling his lips away from his teeth and lifting the corners of the mouth. He dropped it almost immediately, disgusted by the ugly sneer that had come out in place of a smile. How did O'Hara do it? How could she keep that brilliant grin on her face so long and so often? An honest, genuine feel-good grin that managed to annoy him at times yet other times completely flabbergast him?

He ran his hand through his hair again and paused to gaze at it. Four years ago, his dark hair would have been tightly slicked into a side part and kept there at all times. And it stayed exactly as it was for many years. But he was a detective, and clueless as others might think him at times, he did notice things. He saw what Shawn Spencer's hair looked like, and he knew people liked it. It was constantly a mess, almost as scruffy as the stubbly beard he only rarely shaved off. A sandy brown mess of a mop, really. Yet he saw the looks. The admiring gazes and comments. Had noticed one set of eyes in particular, shifting periodically to Spencer when they thought they'd be unseen, drifting to the inevitably rumpled shirt on his torso, to the hands that couldn't keep still, to his unkempt face, and to his hair.

And somewhere along the way, Carlton Lassiter changed his hairstyle.

He would shove a gun in his own mouth and pull the trigger before he would ever admit it to anyone - but he could never fully convince himself that he hadn't tried to imitate the 'psychic's' hair. At first, he simply stopped coating it with gel, brushing it to the side but letting it be somewhat loose. He could excuse it as cutting time out of his morning routine, and cutting out the expense and hassle of purchasing gel. Then he began to stop brushing altogether, the part in his hair slowly vanishing. He would never admit this either, but he found it to be a simple freedom, this small part of himself that he didn't hold to rigid order and rules. He began to run his fingers through his bangs after showering, excusing this, too, telling himself it was just to help it dry. It was simply a side-effect that the motions caused the front of his hair to stand up slightly.

The fact that it had come to somewhat resemble Spencer's hair was mere coincidence, and if anyone ever mentioned it, they would be delivered a special present straight from his Glock.

It didn't seem to have an effect, anyway. He didn't get looks, didn't get comments. Didn't get that pair of eyes shifting toward him instead. And after finally losing his wife completely, he'd buzzed it all off. He'd given up. 'It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter,' he insisted, but it was a losing battle.

God, did it matter.

He turned and leaned his back against the wall beside the sink, massaging his forehead wearily. He had taken her for granted. Completely for granted. Brief encounters with danger and grave situations had given him little glimpses of this fact. The day he'd rushed to the ruined asylum with Spencer and Guster to save her from an axe-wielding girl half-crazed with grief. The day he'd seen her with Drimmer, his heart sinking to his shoes as he realized she had a new partner already. The day she'd been briefly kidnapped by a woman determined to eliminate all competetion in her fight to be with the man she loved.

But it had taken a hellish encounter with a serial killer and a clock tower to tear away the blindfold he'd put on himself.

Even now he struggled with the wave of emotion it caused in him. He didn't want to name it. He didn't want to let his mind come to terms with it. He couldn't do it. He just couldn't do it. There was one thing - one single thing he allowed himself to understand. Juliet O'Hara was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

And God forbid that he would ever do anything - anything - that would result in her being taken or driven away from him.


End file.
